Son of a Hundred Maniacs

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Last week we learned of poor Amanda Krueger’s fate in ‘Amanda’s Christmas’. This week, as we continue on with its sequel, you’ll find this is where I take creative license with the whole Freddy Krueger saga. As mentioned in the previous post, I was a really big fan growing up, but I’ve always felt there was one part of Freddy’s story that could have been better.

You see, in my humble opinion, the key ingredient in a great horror story is empathy, so although I love Freddy’s sinister ways, I never fully subscribed to the notion that he’s pure evil. After all, half of him comes from innocence, Sister Amanda.

With that said, here’s my take on the origins of the legendary monster,

Freddy Krueger…!

Son of a Hundred Maniacs

By

Rico Lamoureux

All Rights Reserved.

“Mama, what’s it like where you live?”

“Oh, Freddy-Boy, such a place is not important right now. All that matters is our time here, together.”

“But I wanna come stay with you.

“Earl is so mean, and the kids, they always…”

Seven years old and sitting in his mother’s embrace, this was the only time Freddy could visit with her, the two alone in the void of dream, so close he could smell the blood which stained her once pure white dress.

Their separation was always sorrowful, the soft violet surrounding them turning into blood purple.

“He’s coming, Mama. Please don’t make me go back.”

They would hold each other tight, tears falling, the strength of the wind growing as a muffled echo neared.

“You must be patient, my dear Freddy-Boy. Someday we’ll be together.

“Someday-”

“Get up, boy!” would roar out, its gust of anger tearing the two apart and sending young Freddy hurling into the void…

Before being physically yanked up, jolting back into consciousness. Back into the harsh reality that was Earl, to do his bidding while being physically and mentally abused.

“Nobody ever wanted you, boy! You’ve always been the devil’s seed. Son of a hundred maniacs! I was the only one that would take you in. You’re nothing but a state check to me.”

This was all Freddy ever knew. Tormented by his foster father, head janitor at Springwood Elementary, adding to the ridicule from his peers as they would chant, “Son of a hundred maniacs!”

Eventually, scorn from the whole town led Freddy to the local library to try and find his past. By this time he was twelve, but still seven in his dreams, in his mother’s arms.

Of course nobody at the library wanted to help him, but it was on microfilm where he found the story of his mother, Amanda, and how she had died while giving birth to him.

For the first time he couldn’t wait to get home, to do his chores and get to sleep so he could ask his mother so many unanswered questions.

But that night she never came to visit him, nor the night after that and the night after that. Gone, as if their time together really had been nothing but a dream. But he refused to believe it, knowing it had to be real. Otherwise what was he? The monster everyone claimed? And so he continued to lay his head down every night, silently asking but never receiving an answer to his question…

“Mama, why do I have these urges, and have to fight so hard to keep them from taking me over? Why am I so hungry to hear the cries of those who hurt me?”

Another thing Freddy knew in his heart, but could never prove, was that Earl’s viciousness went beyond the abuse he showed towards him. Throughout his childhood he’d find pieces of innocence here and there: school photos of some of the girls in his class… a beret attached to a strand of hair… a small pair of panties… But he was always too afraid to tell someone. What if they blamed it all on him?

By high school, while other students were being mentored by the guidance staff, Freddy’s counselor had a new label for him: autistic. This was supposed to explain why he found it hard to concentrate. Why he always seemed to lag behind his fellow classmates. Instead of having him take the SAT Freddy was placed in a Work Study Program, spending half his school day training behind the man who represented his future vocation, Earl.

On into adulthood Freddy continued to suffer, the emotional hold Earl had on him preventing him from striking back. The only souls he felt a connection with were the young boys and girls at school: innocent hearts that would sometimes play with him as he tended to his custodial duties. Jump rope, hopscotch, Jacks… Nothing but innocent fun. But every now and then an adult would see this and bring an immediate stop to it, warning the children to stay away from the man with the trash bags.

Then came the period of time that would change everything…

The first little girl to go missing from Springwood Elementary was only seven years old. She had been one of the few who had continued to interact with Freddy despite the warnings, and when her little bloody dress was found on the far side of the playground, Freddy was the first to be suspected of the heinous act.

But no solid evidence surfaced, and so public opinion was only left to grow.

The following week there was not one but two small children to disappear, and the week after that, three. The whole town was on edge, many of its residents yelling obscenities and threatening Freddy out in the open. But nothing could be connected back to him.

That is until week seven of the horrific children abductions…

The best thing Freddy loved about his job was when he had the chance to plant a tree. It made him feel like he was creating life, and it also reminded him of an unexplained vision he had always had in the back of his mind: of a little girl placing an angel atop a Christmas tree.

As Freddy dug the earth’s soil his clawed garden tool caught hold of a piece of fabric. He pulled but it wouldn’t budge, so he dug around it.

It was attached to a small arm.

A deep chill shot up through Freddy’s spine, expanding throughout his entire body and causing his hands to uncontrollably tremble.

He ran to the principal’s office..

Couldn’t find the words…

Couldn’t catch his breath…

They followed him to the small buried body.

When authorities arrived Freddy was taken into custody.

~

The trial was speedy, the evidence, overwhelming, bloody instruments, many of which were homemade and all linked back to the poor innocent children of Springwood Elementary, found underneath Freddy’s small work shed. He knew Earl was behind everything, but nothing could prove his claims were true.

It seemed all was lost.

But right before his fate was placed into the hands of the jury Freddy’s court-appointed lawyer discovered a bombshell.

His client hadn’t been read his Miranda rights.

The case was dismissed.

~

To say the town of Springwood was outraged would be an understatement. Freddy even needed protection while leaving the courthouse, police escorting him to the local bus station and strongly recommending him to leave town at once.

But he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Most of those children had been his friends, the urge to hurt Earl now stronger in him than ever.

The anger steered Freddy back to his work shed, where he spent the next several hours using some of the knowledge he had acquired from Earl to forge a razor-sharp bladed glove.

All the years of abuse at the hands of his foster father was not the spark that ignited his courage. It was the suffering of others, of his little friends, that had finally brought on the inferno.

As if giving voice to his rage, a loud mob could be heard nearing Freddy’s shed.

He peered out. They were coming from all directions. Torches ablaze, fury burning in vengeance.

He looked down at the four evil-looking blades protruding from the fingers of his right hand, half of him feeling repulsed at the sight of what he had created, his other half hungering to put them to use.

He dropped to his knees…

“Mama…?”

A second later and a bottle of gasoline came shattering through the small window of his shed, followed by a dozen more, both inside and out, leaving everything, including him, drenched in the lethal petroleum.

And then came the fire, burning on a rag sticking out of one of the bottles of gas, engulfing Freddy and everything around him in an instant.

The pain was excruciating, infinitely worse than anything he had ever felt as the storm of fire burned and melted his flesh from head to toe, clothes incinerated, the only thing withstanding it all, the bladed glove.

Not for one second was Freddy shown mercy, no numbness from the shock of it all. In fact, it only seemed to be getting worse, the flames of vengeance turning into the flames of Hell.

Images began to take shape within the Devil’s flames, Freddy’s mother forming out of them, followed by the scene of his birth.

It was difficult and bloody, no doubt of that, but Amanda was strong, showing no signs of succumbing as she pushed with unwavering determination.

Once the baby was extracted it was rushed out of the delivery room, the new mother screaming for her child as she was held down.

With this vivid imagery came realization, even through Freddy’s unbearable pain, that, in reality, the church had prevented his mother from keeping him.

The fierce flames then shifted to The Tower at the Westin Hills Asylum, Sister Amanda, unable to rid herself of the grief, standing in the large window frame of its peak. It was from this highest point where she plunged to her death.

Again filled with thoughts of knowledge, perhaps given to him by his dear mother, Freddy knew the church had covered up the truth, for suicide was a sin, and the last thing it wanted was the shame that one of their own had committed it.

It was the power within the flames that now took over the narrative, telling Freddy through the continual burning of his flesh that God had shown no mercy, sending Sister Amanda to the depths of Hell for her willful act against Him.

Only one way to be saved, only one soul to bring it about, she could be sent to purgatory, by the power of Satan, but of course, only at a price. Freddy would have to become his servant, to embody all darkness.

His mother had again taken shape, and with pleading eyes begged her son not to do it. To instead take the other path. The one of light, the one leading to Heaven.

But he just couldn’t do it. He loved her too much.

And so with the power of will he gave over his soul, the last sight of his mother being the pain in her eyes, in knowing what he was about to become as she ascended off to that unknown place between Heaven and Hell.

POWER! Raw dark power was now flooding into Freddy!

The madness of a hundred maniacs…

The viciousness of a hundred Earl’s…

The hatred of those yelling outside…

All soothing the pain caused by the flames…

All making him feel like he had the strength of a god!

Freddy rose to his feet, brought his bladed hand up to his face, and flexed the extreme power that now lay within it.

He looked out to the parents of Elm Street.

~

EPILOGUE

Seventeen Years Later

Fast asleep in her bed, Nancy was a beautiful teen with her whole life ahead of her.

Within her dream she walked through a schoolyard garden, its trees lush green.

Off in the distance the sound of skipping rope began to fill the air, and with little giggles intermingled with little jumping feet Nancy started to walk towards the playground.

With each step she took the trees would become more withered, more dark, the sky above turning from soft violet to blood purple.

This was soon becoming the look of a nightmare, and when she got to the little girls jumping rope the song they began to sing sent chills down her spine.

One, two, Freddy’s coming for you…

~

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